


waxing poetry

by decideophobia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, stubbly!stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 11:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decideophobia/pseuds/decideophobia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <span>Stiles comes back from college for his summer break two weeks after his accident, and there’s--hair in his face. Derek didn’t see that one coming. At all.</span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	waxing poetry

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://kira-yukimura.tumblr.com/post/72336104942), and encouraged, as always, by Chris.

Derek isn’t particularly surprised when he hears that Stiles broke his arm during lacrosse practice at college. He’d sighed upon hearing the news but that was about as far as it went. It’s not like he could change anything about the fact. Although, admittedly, it is surprising that Stiles has broken his arm playing sports and not battling supernatural evil; and that he went so long without cracking his bones before. In the years Derek’s known him now, Stiles has never had a broken bone before. He was concussed, a little battered, had bruises but that was about it. 

He is surprised, however, by the facial hair. 

Stiles comes back from college for his summer break two weeks after his accident, and there’s--hair in his face. Derek didn’t see that one coming. At all.

“I swear to god, Derek, if you say one word, I’m going to break your arm using my cast,” Stiles threatens when he walks into Derek’s apartment. It’s the pack’s dinner-movie-night, and Derek is, much to his dismay, the host this time. 

Derek smirks as Stiles shoulders past him. “One, it would heal within a minute, so there’s no point in you coming at me; and two, it’d probably hurt you more than me.”

Stiles shoots him a dirty look--which probably shouldn’t get Derek as hot under the collar as it does. The newly gained stubble on Stiles’ face isn’t exactly helping. 

Scott rolls his eyes as he follows Stiles into the apartment, hands over the pizza boxes to Derek. “The others will be here soon,” he informs Derek helpfully.  


“I think you’re underestimating my powers,” Stiles snipes while struggling with a beer bottle he got out of the fridge. 

Derek lifts an eyebrow, pointedly, as he puts the boxes down on the counter. “Definitely. The force you’re exerting on that bottle is something to  _beware of_ .”

“I’m gonna wax your eyebrows in your sleep.”

“Maybe you should wax your face first. I didn’t even know you could grow anything there.”

“A good thing is worth waiting for, Derek.”

“Why? Are you waiting for someone to give you a good shaver?”

“Oh, I have a good shaver, dude, do you want me to show you how good it is?” Stiles scoffs. “I’m a  _stellar_ lefty.”

“Thanks, I think my stubble is doing fine.”

Stiles sneers at him, and Derek watches, fascinated. Despite his words, the stubble looks intriguing on Stiles. It makes him look somewhat older, makes his expressions darker even though they’re pretty impressive without the scruff, too. The scruff casts shadows across Stiles’ face, makes the angles of his jaw look sharper, contrasting to the pale skin of his neck. Derek stares at it for a little too long maybe, wondering how it would feel against his own skin; his own scruff, and his pulse quickens when he considers the possibility that Stiles could give him stubble burn if he decided to. 

Scott is watching them munching on an apple, and when they both turn to look at him, he waves his occupied hand around. “Oh, go on,” he says between two bites. “Don’t mind me.”

“There’s nothing to go on,” Stiles says, sticking his bottle out to Scott with a general motion that basically says,  _Open it_ . “Except maybe going on about how poor Derek’s sense of humour is and his abysmal jokes.”

Scott rolls his eyes uncapping the bottle before he hands it back to Stiles. “Right.”

Stiles knocks his shoulder against Scotts, pouting petulantly, and it looks ridiculous. He fumbles with the bottle a little, clearly not used to relying on his left hand so much, but he manages. Derek stares at Stiles’ exposed neck when he tips his head back to drink; where the stubble fades away to give room to unmarked planes of pale skin. Derek wants to lick it, wants to drag his mouth up the tendons of Stiles’ throat, trace the scruff with his tongue to the hinge of his jaw. 

The rest of the pack come barging into the apartment like they own the place, and at this point, Derek’s beyond grinding his teeth. He’s tried to make them stop but for some reason they don’t accept his authority when it comes to things like this. Sometimes, he feels like a teacher of a bunch of unruly brats. But they’re his brats, and he wouldn’t trade them, he knows that at the bottom of his heart. (At the very bottom. Hidden behind a pile of other things. It’s a spot that’s very hard to access.)

Erica crows when she catches sight of Stiles. “Rockin’ that stubble, Stiles,” she comments and walks over to high five him. “You should break your right arm more often.”

“It looks like a bush,” Isaac points out, and Derek barks out a laugh. Stiles glares at both of them. 

“You should groom it,” Boyd advises as he saunters past them, laying out the DVDs on the coffee table, and Lydia nods along. She grabs Stiles’ face, tilts it in every direction she wants to and Stiles obliques helplessly.

“It does look like a bush,” Lydia agrees then. “We’ll use Derek’s trimmer later.”

Derek’s about to start protesting but Lydia isn’t even paying attention to him in the slightest, and Derek knows he’ll probably won’t be denying her anything anyway. He doesn’t know when he developed a kind of soft spot for her--although it’s probably more of a bruise than a soft spot, given that Lydia just presses until she gets what she wants. 

Allison kisses Scott hello when she sails into the room, and kinks an eyebrow at their conversation. “I offered shaving him,” she says, narrows her eyes at Stiles who clutches at his face with both his hands. “But he’s a chicken shit.”

“I’m not a chicken shit,” Stiles complains and points an accusing finger at her. “You might shave the skin right off my flesh!”

Allison rolls her eyes. “I might if I wanted to.”

Stiles huffs, going back to nursing his beer.

“Why shave if you can wax?” Lydia asks sweetly, and Stiles leans away when she reaches out to pat his cheek.

Derek can’t keep the snort it. “Have you waxed his face before? It would explain why he never sprouted anything.”

Stiles flusters, indignation playing out beautifully on his face. “First of all, I don’t  _sprout_ anything. And second of all, I  _shave_ regularly which can’t be said about everyone here.”

“Are you talking about shaving your face or…?” Isaac asks, innocuous, eyes wide, and it’s enough to send everyone into laughing fits. 

Stiles punches Scott in the shoulder, snorts, and Erica just reaches out and scratches her fingers gently through his scruff. He bats her hand away, wailing, “I’m not a cat!”

“Pretty sure your stubble bristled, though,” Allison adds smirking, and everyone’s howling with laughter. Stiles sighs long-sufferingly, let’s Allison brush a hand through his hair placatingly, and looks like he’s considering selling them all to get new friends. 

Despite the initial teasing, everyone seems to think the stubble looks good, or, as Lydia corrects, “will look good as soon as we’ve trimmed it”. Stiles looks smug about it, shooting Derek glances every once in a while that dare him,  _come at me bro_ . Derek just lifts his eyebrows in response, watches Stiles’ smirk widen. 

It looks different now, his grin more crooked somehow, wolfish even. The scruff doesn’t totally transform Stiles, but it seems to make certain features sharper, and Derek swallows around the dry patch in his mouth as he watches Stiles scratch a spot under his chin. It adds nicely to his broad shoulders, to his large hands with surprisingly long, deft fingers; and it goes unexpectedly good with his bed head.

Derek wonders, idly, what the Sheriff thinks of this new look. Or if this even is a new look for him at all. Maybe Stiles let his facial grow out before, on lazy days during vacation, possibly. 

It’s hard to keep his eyes off Stiles during the afternoon, but it’s been hard before, too. Ever since Derek started  _noticing_ Stiles, since suddenly, somehow Stiles turned from being an annoying kid begrudgingly accepting Derek’s existence in his life into a man who’s saved Derek’s ass more than once, who’s turned into an ally, a friend, somebody Derek can blindly rely on. It snuck up on him, more or less, and now he’s so far gone he doubts there’s the possibility of turning back, ever.

The scruff starts getting a pain in the ass around the time Stiles begins noticing him staring. He cuts Derek short glances with raised eyebrows, mouths  _what?_ at several points while they watch the movie, and Derek keeps shaking his head. 

It’s awfully distracting how Stiles keeps contorting his face absentmindedly. He purses his lips sometimes, scrunches up his nose and wriggles it, kinks an eyebrow until it seems to reach his hairline, rubs a hand over his stubble or scratches the scruff where it’s fading away on his neck. He’s pining, and it’s the worst. Erica catches him look too, waggles her eyebrows repeatedly. Derek tries to ignore her but she goes from making kissy faces at him to pushing her tongue against her cheek in no time, and he wants to shoot her to the moon. 

Turns out everyone’s noticed Derek staring, and they all not-so-subtly impersonate him with growing, ridiculous inaccuracy. At some point Scott abandons the movie for a couple of minutes to cut hearts out of napkins which he places over his eyes. Isaac accompanies it with kissing noises. 

He definitely needs a new pack. 

By the time the movie is over, they’re all more focused on embarrassing Derek than watching it, and Lydia rolls her eyes so hard, Derek’s sure it must hurt.

“You’re so obvious it physically pains me.”

Stiles snorts. “He’s jealous because my scruff is prettier than his.” He strokes lovingly over his face, and god, it does  _things_ to Derek.

“Actually, he wants to rub his scruff on your scruff, and also put his d--”

“I want to put my dairy products back into the fridge,” Derek finishes loudly, and gets up to put away the--the--beer.

He can feel his face heating up when Isaac helpfully supplies, “Beer isn’t a dairy product.”

“Derek defines stuff by his own rules, shut up,” Stiles says, but his smirk is shit-eating. Derek’s sure if he doesn’t kiss him, he’ll strangle him. 

“Yeah, subtlety being a case in point,” Lydia chirps, and Erca throws her head back laughing. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“At least Stiles is just as subtle as you are, which is basically not at all, so the two of you are a good match.”

“You’re also the same level of dense, so there’s that too,” Erica adds, nodding.

“A match made--”

“You guys cut it out,” Scott interrupts, and they fall silent, just like that. Scott smiles at him, fleeting; and Derek’s never had a younger brother before but it feels like he has one now.

Derek catches Scott cast a look at Stiles. It’s one of these looks they give each other sometimes, the one when they speak volumes only they can understand. He doesn’t know what they’re saying, but Stiles breaks eye contact first, and Scott sighs a little. More often than not, Derek finds himself wishing for Scott’s ability to read Stiles, so easy, like an open book. 

Stiles helps Derek with the dishes while the rest of the gang retreat back into the living room, snoozing and, most likely, using up all of Derek’s toilet paper in the bathroom. 

Stiles is just turning around to him after washing his hands, and the next thing Derek knows is that his hand is sticking to Stiles’ face, feeling the the rough stubble underneath his fingers. He feels mortification well up inside of him while Stiles stares at him with open surprise in his eyes. Yet, he doesn’t move away, and Derek’s fingers brush over Stiles’ cheek on their own accord.

“The scruff is totally doing it for you, isn’t it?” Stiles asks, unmoving, while he lets Derek feel up his face. 

Derek scowls. “No.” His fingers trace the edge of Stiles’ jaw. 

“So you’re just groping my face to make sure the stubble is awful.”

“Precisely.”

“‘Kay, lemme know when you’re finished.”

Derek’s hand moves over Stiles’ chin and down his neck, breath catching in his throat when Stiles tips his head back a little. He feels Stiles’ Adam’s apple bob when he lightly trails the pad of his fingers over it, and it probably shouldn’t feel so sensuous, so intimate.

Stiles’ eyes focus on him, bright and sharp, when Derek steps closer, into Stiles’ personal bubble; until he’s so close he can feel Stiles’ cool breath ghosting over his own skin. 

“So?” Stiles asks, voice low, sounding breathless. Derek curls a hand around the side of his neck; Stiles’ pulse thrumming faster under his fingertips. “Most appalling scruff ever?”

Derek nods, “Yeah, the worst,” and he’s embarrassingly hoarse.

Stiles grins as he leans in, their mouths brushing together in a tender motion, slowly and testing. Derek’s lips move against Stiles’ instantaneously, capturing them in a soft kiss. 

“Guess my mouth makes up for it, huh?” Stiles asks, as he leans back, with a smirk, and Derek groans. That’s a whole other image that Derek’s spend too much time thinking about, too. 

He hears the others whooping and cheering in the living room.

*

Stiles keeps the scruff (and lets Derek help groom it) until the cast comes off. Derek’s glad to have a clean shaven Stiles back, even though he can’t deny he thoroughly enjoyed the stubble. He’s also happy, because it means Stiles got both his hands at his disposal again, and he’s much better using his right than his left. Derek tells him as much.

It results with Stiles ripping off a wax strip off Derek’s leg, catapulting Derek from dozing peacefully to painful awareness. He has a hard time explaining the patch of white skin on his shin, while Stiles cackles like a maniac every time somebody asks. Derek really doesn’t know why he likes him.  

It takes  _forever_ until the hair on his leg grows back.


End file.
